First Meetings — Tag Meaning
Tags the origin point: how two characters first encounter each other. It covers canon-divergent retellings of established first meetings, AU re-imaginings, and prequel fics showing a meeting canon never depicted. The appeal is foundational — every dynamic readers love started somewhere.
What to Expect From "First Meetings" Fics
A meeting written with the weight of everything it will become. Often short, charming, and heavy with dramatic irony for readers who know the future.
How to find First Meetings fics on AO3
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Browse "First Meetings" works on AO3Popular Fics Tagged "First Meetings"
Real examples from AO3's most-kudosed works:
He’s Not Paid Enough to Deal with This Shit
by janonny
irreconcilable differences (make for surprisingly good bedfellows)
by pocky_slash
yourself or someone like you
by suzukiblu
with skin intact and altered souls
by romanticallyinept
Gravity
by bitsori
Love at First Sight
by HazelBeka
Related Tags
Meet-Cute
Borrowed from romantic comedy jargon: a first meeting that is charming, memorable, and a little absurd — colliding bicycles, mistaken identities, rescuing the same cat. In fanfic it powers countless AUs where canon characters get a softer, funnier origin than the battlefield where they actually met.
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Strangers to Lovers
The arc that begins at zero: two people with no history meet within the fic and fall in love across its pages. Common in AUs where canon characters meet under new circumstances, it gives authors the full courtship to write — first impressions, discovery, and building intimacy from nothing.
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Meet-Ugly
The meet-cute's gremlin sibling: the first encounter goes terribly — a fender-bender, a screaming match, arresting each other, throwing up on someone's shoes. The worse the meeting, the better the trope; it hands the couple instant friction and a mortifying story for the wedding toast.
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Getting to Know Each Other
Tags the discovery phase as content: questions traded at 2 a.m., histories unpacked, the incremental mapping of another person. It is the connective tissue of strangers-to-lovers fic and a quiet pleasure in its own right — intimacy assembled piece by piece on the page.
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